Why do all my sign offs have to be less than three years old?
All doctors need to provide year on year evidence of competence in certain skills such as life support, and information governance training; other skills require less frequent but still regular updating such as child protection and/ or vulnerable adults updates. Even if you were competent in skills such as cannulation at the end of year 3, if we did not require you all to show us again in Final Year, you could potentially graduate with no further practice from year 3 onwards and present a risk to patients and be a poorly performing member of a clinical team as you enter Foundation training. To be confident that all our graduates are competent in all clinical skills at the point of graduation we need you to update your competencies year on year with all being signed off by the end of Final Year.